I Remember When All This Was Fields…of the Nephilim: A chat with Nick and Tim from Deadlight Dance

With a new single, ‘Glass Walls,’ just dropped and a flurry of activity planned, both in terms of recordings and live shows, I sat down with Nick Fletcher and Tim Emery of Deadlight Dance for a guided tour around their world and a chat about how it all started and where it is all going.

Although you have both played in many bands, am I right in thinking that you have been friends since your school days?

Tim – The Sixth Form was attached to the school, and we met there in September 1989. Within a few weeks we were jamming in a garage (six hours of playing ‘Wild Thing’ and ‘Anarchy in the UK’, with me singing). A very nice neighbour came over to say he’d enjoyed listening, but could we please stop now! That ended future garage rehearsals, but we formed a little goth band and did that for the majority of Sixth Form.

Nick – We have indeed been friends for a long time.  We met in 89, did the whole garage thing, then Tim pursued being a rock star, and I got into folk music, but we kept in touch

How did the band come together?

Nick – Covid gave us a push, although the term band feels a little grandiose for two blokes and an iPad; you could say project, but that feels a little bit jazz fusion.  Essentially, we had the chance to catch up as social distancing eased and music seemed to happen out of it.  As everyone knows, some people isolated for longer than others, but we were able to share opposite corners of a shed, and it grew from there.

Tim – It was through WhatsApp. I messaged Nick over lockdown and suggested we meet for a jam when restrictions ease. We had a list of six songs that had grown to be about forty by the time we met up! That time apart also shaped how we write, now regularly sharing ideas over WhatsApp. I’m happy with band. Or duo. Project is a bit corporate for my tastes!

Your work rate is pretty impressive; are you surprised by the momentum the band has gained, or was that always the plan?

Tim – In the early days, absolutely! It was only supposed to be a jam. I was surprised when we did a gig. I was surprised when we wrote a song together, and I was surprised when we recorded. My surprise peaked with seeing Spotify figures stating our music was streamed in 75 countries! Now, I think it’s just a byproduct of enjoying writing, recording and playing live. I think bands fall out when there is nothing to look forward to, so we always try to have something in the calendar. However, that’s as far as any plan goes.

Nick – Plan is not a word I use regularly. I think the surprise was that we had such an appetite to write, given that the initial conversation had been about reworking The Sisters, Joy Division and Nephilim songs for acoustic instruments.

How would you describe the band’s sound, and what are some of your key influences?

Tim – I like to take quite a pop approach and then distort that as much as possible. I think it sounds both dark and intelligent. As much as I admire players from my records, it’s hard not to acknowledge the people you work with, past and present.

Nick – I don’t think I’m any good at creating sound analogies.  The guy from Tool Station said we sounded like Depeche Mode when we hired the generator for the Wiltshire Gothic recording.  These things are so personal and subjective.  I don’t think I’m trying to sound like anyone, but we’re a product of our background, so yes, there is a darker edge, but I’ve always enjoyed the intricacy of folk melodies.

You use several instruments that aren’t usually found in rock bands; can you tell me a bit about these more unexpected sonic weapons?

Nick – I was 18 when I started faffing about with mandolin and then mandola, but I’d always wanted a mandocello.  When we kicked off the band, I was in both the musical and financial space to realise getting one.

Then, very much like Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, we recognised that two is often better than one.  Tonally, they give resonance and depth; mandolin can float over the top, and if you throw synths into the mix, there are a world of largely unexplored possibilities. I’m sure there are more technically proficient players out there that would be unimpressed with the technique, but we were looking for tone and texture.

Tim – I first played mandolin in 2004 and was pretty mediocre for years. It was only when I started trying to play like me (in Deadlight) that my playing skyrocketed. We’ve spoken about this before, but we are absolutely a product of growing up post-punk. I think our roots are in tradition and then we just fly off at tangents!

It’s worth adding that whilst the mandocellos get the most attention, the drum programming, bass vi, and synth lines are very much part of our sound, and we’ve branched out with everything from stylophone to sitar on the current record. We’ve been playing for decades, and I am always interested in doing things that I haven’t done before. We have a long history of that now, from our instrument choices to recording an album in a Saxon Church!

How do you make instruments more usually found in a folk or roots setting sound as big and dominant as you need them to be to make the Deadlight sound?

Nick – We’re not light on the use of effects, but I don’t want to go all gear nerd.  Sometimes you just need to adjust the thinking. Jon Jones of The Oysterband gets some phenomenal melodeon sounds, and their version of ‘Love Vigilantes’ is great.  Big power chord combinations help too, but mostly we rely on empathetic sound men and engineers. Nick Beere does a great job of understanding and helping us to understand what we are aiming for.

Tim – a lot of players focus on kit, and as much as I like kit, it’s also about how you play and how you approach a song. It’s also about when you don’t play and the use of restraint.

Can you tell me a bit about the recording process, the highs and the lows? And is it just the two of you, or are others involved?

Tim – We work stuff up on iPads and then take it to Nick Beere at Mooncalf Studio. It’s done on a limited budget, but using a professional studio means it sounds good. Nick’s worked his magic across a number of bands locally and over many decades now. It’s mainly just the two of us.

We got Sian and Mike (Drummer from our Sixth Form goth band) to play on the two covers on Vox Populi. All the original stuff has been us. The only exception I can think of was when we recorded “Dark Circles” from the debut and asked Nick Beere if he could be a choir of monks. He recorded his parts all in one take! We’re not precious about parts – Nick played the bass on ‘Monster,’ and I have played guitar on a couple of songs.

Nick – The lows are that it costs money, so the process is finite; this means you can only ever arrive at ‘as good as it gets’, but sometimes that means that it’s ‘as good as it gets’, which is the difference between frowning or smiling.  The biggest high is being vindicated; there is nothing better than hearing something you thought was a good idea come together with other ideas in the studio and become whole.  We are not precious about input, and Nick Beere does a great job both steering and stirring.

You have just released ‘Glass Walls’; can you tell me about that song and its message?

Tim – It started life as a bass riff I came up with when practising. Paul McCartney had said something about people not eating meat if abattoirs had glass walls. I then gave it what I had to Nick to work it up more – lyrics and developing what I had so far. The sitar was in my head, and I wrote those parts in the studio, which has never happened before. Haunting the Atom has been behind our visuals (logo, artwork, videos, etc.) since day one, and the video was put together with them.

And there is an EP planned early next year; can you shed some light on that?

Tim – We grew up listening to some really cool EPs. I like the format; it’s concise and doesn’t outstay its welcome! We did the Chapter and Verse EP when I was told that bands in 21st-century music should avoid this format. That just made us want to do it more. Jeff Bezos dictates enough trends! Those songs have consistently been in our set ever since. I don’t want to say too much about it, as it’s currently very much in pieces at the moment, but hopefully the first half of 2027, and I am exploring the idea of putting it with the first EP for a vinyl release too. What we have so far is decent.

And where next for Deadlight Dance?

Nick – Live, you can catch us at The Green Dragon in Marlborough for our 100th show in November. We’re up to York next year; I’m keen to try out midi hurdy-gurdy, but that’s probably down the track a little way.

Tim – The York show has us as part of the No Bat Left Behind festival on World Goth Day (22nd May) 2027. That and the EP ought to keep us out of mischief for a while! Then we’ll find some other mischief!

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